I miss PJ O’Rourke on a weekly basis but I doubt even he could make this funny, for all the reasons you lay out. Mourning the lack of comedic opportunity may be the last joke you can make about this admin.
I've said this elsewhere, but Trump isn't hard to satirise. Talk about him as if he's behaving appropriately and solemnly, while having a background image showing what he's actually doing.
E.G. "President Trump today has proposed adding on a much needed hosting space to the White House, in the location of the current East Wing. Knowing that any change to the most famous and important building in America is liable to stir up intense feelings, and being sensitive to these criticisms, the President has set aside the next 3 months to have an online forum where the public may weigh in". Then show a wrecking ball demolishing the east wing.
You could have had some bipartisan counter examples, like a President Bernie Sanders getting caught snorting coke off the butt of a hooker in Lincoln bedroom. This exaggeration is so contrary to believed public image of Sanders that it is ridiculous, but one couldn't do the same about Bill Clinton, because it is too close to plausible.
George Steinbrenner, the owner of the NY Yankees, once hosted SNL and the skits where he was involved in his character would often be shocked at the sorts of things that real life Steinbrenner did. One skit Steinbrenner was the owner of a grocery store and all of the employees were afraid of him, especially the store manager. Steinbrenner goes off on a rant about how dumb would it be to terrorize his employees or even serially fire the manager, what kind of maniac would do such a thing? The self-deprecating satire was that George Steinbrenner was exactly that sort of maniac who would go and fire managers throughout the season, often rehiring them the next season just to get fired again; I think Billy Martin was fired by Steinbrenner close to a dozen times.
So the target of satire could be how uncomfortable Trump would be with a typical MAGA supporter or anyone who is merely a middle class American, or impersonations of Trump but as if he was measured and meek to contrast the outrageous behavior he has in the real world. Arrested Development and Schitt's Creek satirized the wealthy, so Trump's exaggerated wealth and being so out of touch with common people would also be ripe target for satire, just imagine him going to the grocery store walking up to the register with a six-pack of diet coke and being fully convinced that he needs his drivers license to make the purchase and the cashier futile trying to convince him that he doesn't need ID to make a purchase. The problem with satire is trying to make a policy argument, to defend democracy, when it should come from a point of ridicule not some hi-filuting sense of justice, justice is to take the target down a peg with ridiculousness. Jonathan Swift did this with A Modest Proposal mocking the callous response of the English to the starvation (a minor famine compared to the later on in the late1840s), and again with Gulliver's Travels and the money grubbing Yahoos on the island where horses talked.
It's hard to lampoon a guy who is himself so gleefully getting his haters to lampoon themselves. The Babylon Bee is like a carrion bird feasting on the beclowning-themselves corpses of Trump's Dem targets. A very very funny carrion bird.
I miss PJ O’Rourke on a weekly basis but I doubt even he could make this funny, for all the reasons you lay out. Mourning the lack of comedic opportunity may be the last joke you can make about this admin.
What about President Camacho though? Can you do pre-satire?
Oh my!
I've said this elsewhere, but Trump isn't hard to satirise. Talk about him as if he's behaving appropriately and solemnly, while having a background image showing what he's actually doing.
E.G. "President Trump today has proposed adding on a much needed hosting space to the White House, in the location of the current East Wing. Knowing that any change to the most famous and important building in America is liable to stir up intense feelings, and being sensitive to these criticisms, the President has set aside the next 3 months to have an online forum where the public may weigh in". Then show a wrecking ball demolishing the east wing.
As 30 Rock called it, 'normal Al" him.
You could have had some bipartisan counter examples, like a President Bernie Sanders getting caught snorting coke off the butt of a hooker in Lincoln bedroom. This exaggeration is so contrary to believed public image of Sanders that it is ridiculous, but one couldn't do the same about Bill Clinton, because it is too close to plausible.
George Steinbrenner, the owner of the NY Yankees, once hosted SNL and the skits where he was involved in his character would often be shocked at the sorts of things that real life Steinbrenner did. One skit Steinbrenner was the owner of a grocery store and all of the employees were afraid of him, especially the store manager. Steinbrenner goes off on a rant about how dumb would it be to terrorize his employees or even serially fire the manager, what kind of maniac would do such a thing? The self-deprecating satire was that George Steinbrenner was exactly that sort of maniac who would go and fire managers throughout the season, often rehiring them the next season just to get fired again; I think Billy Martin was fired by Steinbrenner close to a dozen times.
So the target of satire could be how uncomfortable Trump would be with a typical MAGA supporter or anyone who is merely a middle class American, or impersonations of Trump but as if he was measured and meek to contrast the outrageous behavior he has in the real world. Arrested Development and Schitt's Creek satirized the wealthy, so Trump's exaggerated wealth and being so out of touch with common people would also be ripe target for satire, just imagine him going to the grocery store walking up to the register with a six-pack of diet coke and being fully convinced that he needs his drivers license to make the purchase and the cashier futile trying to convince him that he doesn't need ID to make a purchase. The problem with satire is trying to make a policy argument, to defend democracy, when it should come from a point of ridicule not some hi-filuting sense of justice, justice is to take the target down a peg with ridiculousness. Jonathan Swift did this with A Modest Proposal mocking the callous response of the English to the starvation (a minor famine compared to the later on in the late1840s), and again with Gulliver's Travels and the money grubbing Yahoos on the island where horses talked.
Agreed. Leave it to the South Park guys to explore new comedic territory on the subject of Trumpo
It's hard to lampoon a guy who is himself so gleefully getting his haters to lampoon themselves. The Babylon Bee is like a carrion bird feasting on the beclowning-themselves corpses of Trump's Dem targets. A very very funny carrion bird.